I first met Maj.
Ward Dean, M.D., United States Air Force,over the telephone. He had just read
The Miracles of Rebound Exercise, and decided that he didn't like some of the
things I had said. His major complaint was that I was making statements that
were not supported by scientific studies and documentation."Sure, I can
handle criticism," I remember saying. He then spent the next ninety minutes
telling me what was wrong with my book. Personally, I was devastated. That telephone
conversation left me weak. To make things worse, I received a letter a week
later enumerating the many fallacies of my work. I did study his suggestions
and corrected the mistakes of the book during subsequent printings.
I was surprised
one day when Dr. Dean called me and asked me what he could test in his laboratory
in Korea. I suggested that he establish how many G's a person could develop
on a rebounder."Okay." He said, "It's as good as done.
Near the end of
January, 1983, I received a copy of his Master's Thesis for his Master's Degree
in Physiology from Kyungbook University, College of Medicine in Taegu, Korea.The
subject? How much G force can be developed by an athlete in good physical condition
bouncing on a quality rebounder at maximum attainable altitude. His scientific
conclusions are 3.24 G's.
In a chapter of
Medical Physiology, entitled, Space Physiology, Guyton points out that the normal
human can handle as much as 8 Gs momentarily, and 20 Gs in a sitting position
before vertebral fracture occurs. If the transverse acceleration forces are
applied uniformly over large areas of the body, as much as 15 to 25 Gs can be
withstood. The point being, that if the best athletes can develop only 3.24
Gs, rebounding is a safe whole body-exercise for virtually everybody.
